Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cme!libes From: libes@cme.nbs.gov (Don Libes) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: UNIX history made easy Message-ID: <1731@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> Date: 13 Oct 89 03:26:55 GMT References: <20226@usc.edu> <17085@rpp386.cactus.org> <1858@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> <14920@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> <1218@skye.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology Lines: 25 In article <1218@skye.ed.ac.uk> richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) writes: >In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >>The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, >>Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, >>you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. >You certainly shouldn't call yourself a computer scientist if you don't >understand the major principles expounded by these people, but to >believe that knowledge of the people is important smacks of episodism. I originally said that any computer scientist ought to know the Turing award winners. Hey, folks...I'm not talking biographies here. I'm talking familiarity with fundamental computer science literature! If you don't know who Knuth is, you're telling me you are unaware of an essential reference on algorithms. If you don't know the name Backus, you couldn't possibly know very much about language translation. All of these names come up so frequently in references, or algorithm names, that it is inescapable you become familiar with them. I never meant to suggest that you had to read their biographies or take a class in the subject. Rather, such knowledge is simply an inevitable part of learning the field of computer science. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes